I had a totally new experience yesterday. Normally, I shun all interaction with humans. This is why I use the self-checkout whenever it’s available, buy shit online if I can, and drive miles out of my way to avoid 4-way stop signs. I make certain allowances at the dog park because I’m a good dad and will do what I have to for the sake of my boys (plus, other than the Frisbee golfers, the folks at the park are dog people, so they’re mostly OK), but that’s about it. Yesterday, though, at the crack of eight (I’d have been there earlier, but they don’t open ’til 8:00 on Sundays), I went to Home Depot and asked for help. Okay, I guess that’s stretching it a bit. I was walking around looking confused and hostile (confused, because that’s my normal look, and hostile – what Granny calls my “Klingon Look” – in order to discourage people from talking to me) while trying to find something, when one of the Depot Dudes came up and asked me if I needed help, and – here’s the kicker – I said “yeah.” And he actually helped me!

Emboldened by my success, I asked him where I might find something else – and he helped me yet again! I was in and out in record time. In fact, I was kind of meandering aimlessly about the store for a while, trying to figure out what I forgot, ‘cuz I was done so fast. I know this probably sounds trivial to you, but to me, this was stunning. I imagine this must be similar to what happens when you ask somebody for directions (though obviously my Garmin nüvi is a far superior alternative). Oh, sure, I’ve had my wife go get help (she was born rather lacking in the patience department, and will stoop to asking for help at the drop of a hat), but I usually go and hide while she’s doing it, so as not to be exposed to her shame and humiliation, and this is the first time I experienced it directly. Oddly, it wasn’t all that bad. Not that I plan on ever doing it again, of course, and it’s not something I’m proud of, but I reckon it’s good to humble yourself occasionally. Let’s you see how the other half lives. Hell, maybe I’ll even read the directions for the new microwave. Nah.

The only mention of what happened 68 years ago today was that one of the local high school marching bands was going to be honored for having an undefeated season (bands have wins?) as part of “Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day,” and then a quick 60 second segment of black and white stock footage of ships engulfed in smoke and flames. I’m not sure what the two things have to do with each other (congrats to the B’ville Bees Band, though), but doesn’t Pearl Harbor rate something a little more than that? I mean, I was just looking on the CNN and CBS news websites, and there isn’t even a mention (not on their front pages, anyway), though MSNBC at least has something.

For those of you too young to remember (or too young to remember anybody who remembers), more than 2,200 people – sailors, mostly – died on a day that thrust us into a war on both hemispheres simultaneously, and we didn’t abandon the Constitution. Well, except for that whole Japanese internment stuff, but at least they didn’t lock them up and torture them (that we know of), and anyway, in 1988 Ronnie Raygun officially said, “sorry about that.” Unlike people today, folks back then didn’t whine and mope about, blathering mindlessly about how “everything changed,” either, and FDR didn’t tell them to go shopping – he told them to get off their asses and either enlist or buy War Bonds and start crankin’ out ships, tanks, and airplanes. Everything from sugar and gas to butter, rubber, and nylon was rationed for the war effort.

Buy shit? Hell, no, just the opposite. Stop buying shit, ‘cuz we need it “over there!” And by God (who was still alive back then), the people went out and did it – cranking out something like 300,000 airplanes, 85,000 tanks, 30 aircraft carriers (2 “large” ones), 8 battleships, 350 destroyers, and 200 submarines (not to mention a couple of atomic bombs). And people who tried to profit from the war were sent to prison like the criminals they were.

I always thought it was kind of silly that people denounce it for being a “sneak attack,” as if blowing up a couple thousand people would’ve been OK if they’d just sent us a telegram or something first:

COMING TO ATTACK YOUR NAVAL FLEET STOP SHOULD BE THERE EARLY MORNING ON THE SEVENTH IF WEATHER IS OK STOP HAVE A NICE DAY, IMPERIALIST PIGS STOP PS - YOU SUCK STOP

Oh, I guess you’re supposed to declare war first and all that. Play by the rules and whatnot. But where would the fun be in that? Hell, we don’t even bother to declare war anymore (though we do make sure the “news” organizations get advance notice so they don’t miss any photo ops), and we attack with un-manned drones (flown from right here in Syracuse, even). Can’t get much sneakier than that.

Today is also, ironically, my Father-In-Law’s 88th birthday (not that he was at Pearl Harbor; he was busy celebrating his 20th birthday by trying not to get shot himself, having had the honor of serving the Fatherland in the Kriegsmarine for several years already). Happy Birthday, Opa!

On Press the Meat today, it’s Secretary’s Day, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense, Bob Gates. Also up, Saint John McCain, and a roundtable with former journalist Bob Woodward and Tom “my head is flat” Friedman.

Secretary’s Day continues on CBS as Bob and Hill hop on over to Faze the Nation.

At Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has Gen George Betrayus, plus Dick Durbin, John “corn hole” Cornyn, the fuxheads, and “Power Player of the Week,” George Stevens Jr., Producer of the Kennedy Center Honors.

We get back to the Secretary’s Day celebration on the Goebbels Network, as George Snufalufagus hosts Hill and Bob, plus Russ Feingold and a roundtable with George :jerk: Will, Piggy Peggy Noonan, Dick Haass and Katrina vanden Heuvel.

On CNN, Fareed Zakaria hosts Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s Special Representative to the Afghanistan/Pakistan region, flathead Thomas Friedman, and former head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei.

Have a good Sunday.

Well, it didn’t take long for officials in the Obama administration to “clarify” that whole “withdrawal” thing. SecDef Bob Gates says “…plans to begin withdrawing American troops in July 2011 are definite, yet flexible….” Ah, definite yet flexible. I like that. My pillow is firm, yet soft. My sponge is damp, yet dry. Not quite Rumsfeldian, but close. SecState Hillary Clinton calls it a a “real target for us to aim at.” Well, glad to hear we have a real target to aim at. National Security Adviser Jim Jones (there’s a name that inspires confidence, eh?) is a bit more clear: “…this is not a withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan in 2011…. [I]n no manner, shape or form is the United States leaving Afghanistan in 2011.” Well, alrightly then. Sounds like “withdrawing from Afghanistan” is the equivalent of “health care reform.”

It’s “Free Form Friday” on the local “Classic Rock” station today (as it is every Friday). This means that, instead of the DJs playing the same old shit they play every day, people call in and request the same old shit the DJs play every day. “Um, can you play ‘Stairway to Heaven? I aint heard that since ‘Get the Led Out’ on Wednesday.” Personally, I’d like to call in and request ‘Working Class Hero’ (though that might be more appropriate as a Monday song), but since they play the sanitized “funky kicks” version of ‘Jet Airliner’ and the censored, “who the…are you?” version of ‘Who Are You,’ I think they might balk at “…keep you doped with religion and sex and TV, you think you’re so clever and classless and free, but you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see.” After all, that’s not very Christmassy, is it?

Speaking of X-mas, last night the First Family lit the National Christmas Tree (that’s right, “Christmas Tree” – contrary to the bogus e-mails claiming that the Obamas would be calling them “holiday” trees) in an invitation-only event (more or less), kicking off the rather ironically named month-long “Pageant of Peace.” Well, the President is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, after all. The best thing about the National Christmas Tree is that it’s alive and well – nobody had to go out and murder a beautiful old tree. I’ve always found the whole Times Square tree thing grotesque. They make a big deal of hauling this poor dead tree in on a flatbed truck – like a deer strapped to the roof of a station wagon or something. They ought to go out and gut one of our State Senators, shove a light bulb up his ass, and use him as a tree topper.

But, whatever. Despite the lack of snow (we’ve now gone 283 days w/o getting an inch of snow, which is really quite amazing), I guess there’s no escaping the fact that the Christmas Season is upon us (whether we want it or not). I choose to more or less ignore it as much as I can. I quit with the cards last year (talk about a waste of trees), and I don’t really have anybody to shop for (kitchen appliances are my gift to the house this year), so there’s not much for me to do except wait for the Twilight Zone Marathon on New Year’s. I really can’t get away from it at work, though. Christ (so to speak), some of these people are awfully gung-ho with their collections for families and toys for tots and everything. Not that those aren’t good causes, of course, and I admire their dedication, but, well, I guess the part of me that gives a shit about Christmas probably died with my mother 10 years ago. Not that I’m a “bah humbug” kinda guy – I try not to step on anybody’s holiday buzz or anything. But my emotions are invested in more important stuff at this time of year – SU basketball (which, so far, is going pretty OK).

Speaking of important shit, the Today Show’s top story was the impending verdict in the Amanda Knox murder trial in Italy. This somehow managed to beat out Day 5 (or whatever it is) of the Tiger Woods saga, the tree-lighting ceremony, and the White House party crashers (funny how Republicans – after weeks of “watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants” and adding fuel to the “Obama aint a legit President” fire are now suddenly concerned with the President’s safety, refusing to accept the fact that, no matter what else, it’s the Secret Service’s job to keep the crazy people away from the President – not the White House Social Secretary). They did, eventually, get around to mentioning the minor story of the attack this morning on a mosque in Pakistan that killed at least 40 people.

You have to give the Salahi’s credit for getting the attention they so coveted (and I don’t see why they should face any criminal charges – no matter how embarrassed anybody is over it; I mean, if I walk up to the White House and say, “I’m here for the party,” and they say, “oh, right this way,” well, good for me, I guess). You’d have to be living in a cave not to have heard their names at this point.

Speaking of living in a cave, that’s exactly what two brothers – Zsolt and Geza Peladi – have been doing. The boys had been down on their luck, living in a cave outside of Budapest, and selling junk on the street in order to feed themselves. Their fortunes have changed, though, as it turns out they are two of three long-lost relatives who will share a $7 billion (with a ‘b’) inheritance. The best part? Women. According to the 43-yr old Geza:

“If this all works out it will certainly make up for the life we have had until now — all we really had was each other — no women would look at us living in a cave. But with money, maybe we can find a partner and finally have a normal life.”

Oh, no worries there, Geza; I think you fellas are all set with the ladies now. Might I suggest a certain Swedish supermodel in Florida? I think she may soon be available. Two words of advice, though: get a pre-nup, and hide the 9-iron.

Well, I guess it’s that time again. Have a good one.

I finally got around to watching Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro’s movie “Body of War,” about a 25-yr old kid named Thomas Young who enlisted in the Army to root out the evil-doers in Afghanistan, was sent to Iraq instead, and, on his fifth day there, was packed into an uncovered and unarmored vehicle with a bunch of other young men so they could be used as AK-47 target practice for insurgents. Kinda like shootin’ fish in a barrel (or wolves from a helicopter). Thomas was shot below the collar bone, his spinal cord was severed around mid-chest or so, and his life was destroyed. He can’t cough, can’t regulate his own body temperature (he has to wear a vest filled with ice packs that he adds or removes like thermal ballast as required), can piss to some extent, but not enough to empty his bladder, so he needs a catheter inserted a few times a day, lest the leftover urine crystallize and lead to urinary tract infections, which he’s prone to), can’t walk of course, spontaneously craps himself, and is for the most part incapable of having sex with his pretty young wife. As the film follows Young through a life filled with pain, massive amounts of prescription drugs, and the eventually dissolution of his marriage, it cuts to speeches from Republicans and Democrats alike spewing the same bullshit propaganda about WMD, mushroom clouds, and “national security” that we all knew at the time (and since been proven) to be lies.

I hadn’t thought this shit could still move me, but there I was, on the verge of tears over what this kid has to deal with for what’s left of his life (having to instruct his mother on how to insert a catheter into his penis is just one indignity he was forced to endure – on camera), enraged by these piece of shit “representatives” who paved the way for Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to send them there, and proud of Robert Byrd, Teddy Kennedy, and the other 21 Senators (21 + 2 = 23, for those who are checking my math) and 133 Representatives who had the courage to vote “no” just three weeks before election day, 2002. And here we are, seven years, more than 4,000 dead and some 200,000 Thomas Young’s later. After Vietnam, I never thought we’d be stupid enough to fall for it again, but here we are. And what really enrages me is that Barack Obama is doing the same goddamn thing in escalating whatever it is we’re calling this folly in Afghanistan. Maybe the 30 years between Vietnam and Iraq dulled our senses and blurred our vision, but there’s no excuse for Afghanistan. It’s clear, it’s obvious, and it’s shameful.

And the expendable cogs in the machine like Thomas Young will continue to have their lives blown to pieces so profits can be maximized, and politicians can prove how tough they are by sending other people’s kids off to die in our names.

Speaking of shameful, as Sue mentioned yesterday, the NY State Senate had a vote on legislation to legalize gay marriage. It had already passed rather handily in the NY State Assembly, had the support of our Governor, and had already passed a state constitutional test, in as much as the NYS Court of Appeals ruled that same sex marriage was OK – as soon as it was enacted into law. So if the Senate passed it, then gay NYers would have had the same rights (at least as far as marriage and what it entails) as everybody else. In the debate leading up to the vote, no Republicans spoke, and, predictably, all Republicans voted “no.” The Republicans were joined by 8 Democrats (my State Senator voted “yes,” I’m proud to say), and the bill failed 24-38. None of this is particularly surprising, but it’s still disappointing.

Speaking of disappointment, I was supposed to get my new refrigerator yesterday, with the old one being relegated to “beverage fridge” in the basement. I was looking forward to stocking it up, and then getting a big funnel for the floor drain so I’d never have to go upstairs again. Alas, Sears had other plans for me. They brought my new stove and “microhood,” but no fridge. It seems their “system” never kicked off the part that tells the warehouse to actually ship the goddamn thing to me. Because, supposedly, my credit card was never charged. So the only way to get it back into the “system” was to charge it again. Except I checked my statement online, and guess what? They did charge it. Just cancel the second charge, right? Oh, no, can’t do that. I had to go in with receipt and get the original one credited. And they can’t deliver the damn thing until after Christmas now. I was a little peeved, to say the least, but, whattya gonna do? You can’t fight the “system.”

Speaking of the system, time to get ready to go and be a good little cog in it.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to my big sister. Hard to believe you’re 29 already.

Great news from the President last night: we’re absolutely, positively, sure-as-shit getting the hell out of Afghanistan. And, as Phil Collins once sang, “we’ve gotta get in to get out.” So, time for 30,000 more of our friends, neighbors, sons, and daughters to get in. Not all of them will be getting out, unfortunately, but if you wanna make an omelet, you gotta break a few eggs, right? Lots of these expendable eggs will be coming from my neck of the woods – Fort Drum, which is about an hour north of me in the now infamous NY 23rd District (not sure if Doug Hoffman knows that or not). Ft. Drum is the home of the 10th Mountain Division (which had the honor of being the “most deployed” army division of the 1990s, and has endured multiple deployments and suffered large numbers of casualties in “Operation Enduring Freedom”), whose mission it is to train to fight in terrain like Afghanistan (not that Watertown, NY is exactly Afghanistan, but it’s pretty rural, gets damn cold in the winter, and has lots of trees and mountains (not exactly the Rockies, of course, but having humped a camping backpack up and down them myself, I’d just as soon not have to carry 120 lbs of military equipment around in them – especially if people were shooting at me). But at least we a have a firm deadline of July 2011 for withdrawal. Well, not a deadline, really. More like a “goal.” And, of course, it’s “tied to events on the ground.” And there’s no actual defined number of troops that will begin withdrawing in 2011. But we’ll pull out in time – “honest, honey.”

After all, as the President pointed out, the number of troops in Afghanistan has paled in comparison to the number in Iraq. So, we need to even all that out. Oh, I suppose we could do that by pulling our guys and gals out of Iraq instead of sending more of them off to die in Afghanistan, but that wouldn’t have been very manly, and Republicans would’ve taunted the President mercilessly. Not now, though – just ask Karl Rove, who said he’d be:

“among the first to stand up and applaud” the President for a troop increase.

Or Michael Steele:

…I am glad the president will finally provide General McChrystal with the troops he needs

Hey, if geniuses like Karl Rove and Michael Steele think this is a good thing, it must be. Mustn’t it?

Oh, sure, surrender monkeys like Russ Feingold and Dennis Kucinich aren’t happy, but those guys are always going on about stupid shit like peace and universal health care and whatnot.

As many Obama true believers have pointed out, this decision was “very hard,” and you certainly can’t argue with that. Our last great War President told us being the preznit was “hard work,” after all, and it was one of the few things he ever said that had the ring of truth to it.

For me, though, President Obama’s new master plan for Afghanistan evokes the words of the last generation’s great American War President, Lyndon Johnson, who, in 1966 (when there were “only” 200,000 US troops in Vietnam) said:

Some people ask if we are caught in a blind escalation of force that is pulling us headlong toward a wider war that no one wants. The answer—again—is a simple no…. There is not, and there will not be, a mindless escalation.

Amen, and “…God Bless you, God Bless our troops, and may God Bless the United States of America.”

There was a bit of unexpected compassion last night, from none other than Bill O’Reilly, who gave Mike Huckabee a virtual pat on the back and told him “there, there, dear. It’s not your fault,” while discussing Huck’s sentence commutation of apparent mass cop murderer Maurice Clemmons (who appears to have now been shot and killed by the police). Well, gosh. The next thing you know, O’Reilly will be calling Huckleberry up on the phone, and fantasizing about taking a falafel to his spectacular boobs. Not that I disagree with Bill-O (about the commutation, not Mike’s spectacular boobs), but do you think this is the same reaction he’d have for, say, a Mario Cuomo or Mike Dukakis in similar circumstances? Maybe Bill’s just getting soft in his old age (I think part of his settlement with Andrea Mackris might have been a requirement to add saltpeter to his diet).

NY Congressman Maurice Hinchey went on MSNBC to declare that the Bushies deliberately let Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan in order to justify the invasion of Iraq. Well, that’s just crazy talk, of course. Until you actually take a look at what transpired, that is. Then maybe it doesn’t seem so crazy after all.

Speaking of Afghanistan, President Obama yesterday whomped up his orders to the military, which were then hermetically sealed in a mayonnaise jar outside Funk & Wagnalls’ porch. Tonight, Obama cracks the seal and is expected to tell us that he’s sending 30,000 more non openly-gay troops over there. Congratulations, Mr. President, you’ve bought yourself a war. I’m sure you can count on the full support and respect of Republicans from here on out. Anything else would be treason with our men and women in harm’s way. Right?

Although it’s likely to become just a footnote in the history of the Obama administration when compared to his War in Afghanistan, the debate on health care reform continues in the Senate. Yesterday, a CBO report requested by Evan Bayh (by Bayh) stated that the current Senate version of the legislation would raise current insurance premiums, but that subsidies would actually reduce premiums for a majority (57%) of people. This, of course, resulted in reports by “serious” news outlets that insurance premiums would rise substantially.

Well, time to go seize the day.

According to the Today Show and other “news” outlets, I guess today is the day when people go back to work, fire up their computers, and use their company’s high-speed Internet access to buy shit online, killing what promises to be a veeeeeery long day back after a four-day weekend while looking like they’re being productive (or at least awake). I didn’t realize people needed an excuse to buy stuff online (or screw off at work), but I do know that today marks the start of “fuckoff” season here in the US. Productivity at most offices drops by at least 37% between now and mid April. I don’t have “statistics” or “studies” or anything to back that up, but it sounds true, which is all I need.

There’s a short uptick after the holidays (for about a week or so, until the whole “Joy to the World” crap wears off), but then it’s time to get serious about Super Bowl party planning (which is in February these days, if you can believe that). Then Valentine’s Day induced depression ensues, resulting in high absenteeism (not to mention suicide) rates for a couple of weeks. Workers return in large numbers to fill out their March Madness office pools (although turnout is understandably low on March 18), which keeps everybody occupied until April 5, but then it’s tax time, so nothing much gets done until that’s over with. But, whatever. All I know is I should’ve taken today off, ‘cuz I’m just not feeling it.

Krazy Jon Kyl compared Afghanistan to Vietnam yesterday on Fux News. Not in the way you’d expect (mainly, that it’s a stupid place to be at, is unwinnable because nobody knows what “winning” means, the people don’t want us there, and rather than expanding this fool’s war, we ought to be declaring victory and getting the hell out), but that we aren’t escalating things enough and ought to show our commitment to “git ‘er done” with a shitload of troops and just win this darn thing already. Apparently Jon kinda missed out on the whole half million US troops in Vietnam thing, over 200,000 of whom were killed or wounded before we declared “victory with honor” and ran like hell.

You’ll have to excuse Jon, because (like so very many Republican chickenhawks), he was pretty busy during Vietnam, what with graduating from college in 1964 and heading straight off to law school, and probably didn’t get a chance to read the papers. Oh, I reckon he could have enlisted after getting his law degree in 1966, but that might have interfered with his career plans. Though if they’d invented magnetic yellow ribbons back then, I’m sure Kyl would’ve been among the first to put one on his Cadillac.

Mike Huckabee might have been a longshot presidential candidate a couple of days ago, but today it’s starting to look as if his political life died along with those four Seattle police officers yesterday. It’s being reported that the “person of interest” police appear to have surrounded this morning (and believed to be wounded, if not dead), had what was essentially a life sentence in Arkansas commuted by then-Governor Huckabee.

Thanks for playing, Mike. But your record of compassion wasn’t really a good thing to have on the old wingnut resume in the first place, and this, well, this won’t look good. Can you say, “Willie Horton?” I thought you could.

Yesterday was a beautiful day here, but I squandered most of it doing laundry and kitchen demolition (just demolishing the kitchen, not the laundry). At least I now have room for the new refrigerator and “microhood,” though it comes at the expense of quite a bit of cabinet space. Looks like today is gonna be pretty crappy (40’s and rain – no end to our record snow drought in sight), though, so maybe going to work isn’t such a bad thing.

Speaking of work, looks like it’s time to go and buy shit be productive. Have a good one.

On Press the Meat today, homophobe Rick Warren is on to talk about Faith and Charity (two hookers he picked up last night, I think). Then Bill and Melinda Gates are on to tell us that when once you’ve got more money than God and have accumulated pretty much everything you can think of accumulating, you might as well give some of it away.

At CBS’s Faze the Nation, is a mostly Republican kinda day, with otken Democrat Carl Levin, the teabaggers’ best friend, Dick Armey on to face the woman whose candidacy Dick helped to flush down the toilet, Dede Scozzafava, and Ed Gillespie gets out of his closet to stretch his legs.

On Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace talks Afghanistan with Jon Kyl and Evan Bayh, and health care with Howard Dean Mike “Huckleberry” Huckabee.

At the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus has girly man, Lindsey Graham, VT Independent Boynie Sanders, and a roundtable with George :jerk: Will, Cokie “the hag” Roberts, Paul Krugman, Matty Dowd and “Douchebag Dan” Senor.

On CNN, Fareed Zakaria has Maziar Bahari, the Newsweek reporter who spent four months in a prison in Tehran and a conversation Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Happy Birthday, Em!

Yesterday, we went out and stimulated the economy, buying new kitchen appliances in the never-ending attempt to renovate the kitchen. Of course, we bought a refrigerator that’s about six inches taller than the cabinets under which it’s supposed to sit, and a “microhood” that will also require dismantling some wall cabinets (not to mention I need to run a new water line for the fridge and a new electric circuit – from where, I do not know, at this point), so I not only spent enough money that I couldn’t sleep last night (the fact that I didn’t have any beer didn’t help much either), but I also made more work for myself. On the bright side, the old fridge will go downstairs to become a dedicated beer refrigerator, so I won’t have to go up and down the stairs so often (I just need to get a big funnel for the floor drain).

A word of advice to all you gents out there: if you’re gonna fool around on your supermodel wife, hide the damn golf clubs. And always keep your eyes on the road until you’ve made a safe getaway. Oh, wait, she was just using the golf club to smash in the rear window and get him out of the vehicle. OK 🙄

Move over Bill O’Reilly, the idiots have elected a new king. Yes, Sean Hannity’s “news” show was #1 last week, though that may be a one-week wonder thanks to Sean’s interview with teabag queen, Sarah Palin.

SU’s football season mercifully comes to an end today at Connecticut. It would be nice if they could pull out another miracle win the way they did last week, but I’m not holding out much hope (their roster is so depleted, they aren’t even carrying a full Division II squad these days). Good thing it’s basketball season.

Oh well, lots to do today, so I guess I’d better get going. Feels like Sunday, doesn’t it?